Default fs9 gauges not working in fsx

[Guest stewi2]

I have a really strange problem with some of the default aircraft in FSX. It seems like XML gauges that use the fs9 DTD, e.g. that start with instead of  don't show up in the game.All I get in that case is the panel background.This happens for a number of aircraft that are holdovers from fs9, such as the 747, R22, Baron, Cub and the DC3. The Baron with the G1000 shows both behaviors: The G1000 displays fine, but the backup gauges on the right side of the panel don't. The fs9 GPS gauges don't work at all (the window flickers and then disappears when I press shift-3).I ran Microsoft's filemon tool to see if the gauges are even loaded correctly and it does load the XML files, but then doesn't load the corresponding bmp files. It's like the XML parsing fails and it decides to just ignore the gauges. I also tried to open one of the older gauges in ace.exe (with the service pack) and get a parse error popup. But perhaps that tool only works with the newer format.Do any of you gauge gurus have any idea what might be going on here ?

[rcbarend 37]

Just a suggestion you could look at:The default fs9 .cab files that I've seen, always have their bitmaps in a 640 or 1024 subfolder.Could that be the reason ??Would be easy to check.I have tried all my XML gauges in FSX, and never saw that particular problem of bitmaps not showing. But then again, I failed to see any reason to use this (ancient ?) construction of having two sets of different-resolution bitmaps.Cheers, Rob

[Guest stewi2]

>Just a suggestion you could look at:>The default fs9 .cab files that I've seen, always have their>bitmaps in a 640 or 1024 subfolder.>Could that be the reason ??>Would be easy to check.>I checked and I didn't see that hierarchy in any of the gauges I looked at. In all the .cab files I looked, the bitmaps are in the same directory as the xml files. They also open fine in FS Panel Studio Demo (latest version with FSX support). I just noticed that the icons in SimIcons.cab don't show up either on any of the panels. And lo and behold, the XML for those is also in the "old" format.This absolutely makes no sense to me. Should ace.exe from the SDK be able to open these gauges ? Because on my machine I just get a parse error. I'm wondering if there's a connection somehow.And by the way, these aren't gauges I copied over from fs9 (which uninstalled after installing FSX). They are the ones that come with the older planes in FSX. The .dll gauges all seem to work by the way.>I have tried all my XML gauges in FSX, and never saw that>particular problem of bitmaps not showing. But then again, I>failed to see any reason to use this (ancient ?) construction>of having two sets of different-resolution bitmaps.>>Cheers, Rob>>>>Thanks,Stefanedit: I also checked with filemon.exe and it appears that it doesn't even try to load the bitmaps. Usually it tries out various different possibilities before giving up.

[rcbarend 37]

>>I checked and I didn't see that hierarchy in any of the gauges I looked at. In all the .cab files I looked, the bitmaps are in the same directory as the xml files.>>You must be looking in other FS9 cab files then I am then :-) Because the ones I looked at DO have this /640 en /1024 substructure.Like Beech_Baron.cab, Boeing747-400.cab and Sim_Icons.cab(don't know about others)Rob

[n4gix 4,947]

>This absolutely makes no sense to me. Should ace.exe from the>SDK be able to open these gauges ? Because on my machine I>just get a parse error. I'm wondering if there's a connection>somehow.No. The ace.exe program is the major reason for the change in XML syntax...I've had no problems whatever using any XML gauge in FSX, whether it uses the old scheme or the FSX scheme.I know that's not much help, but it does at least point to the problem as being a local machine/OS issue, rather than an FSX systemic issue... ;)

[Guest stewi2]

>>>I checked and I didn't see that hierarchy in any of the>gauges I looked at. In all the .cab files I looked, the>bitmaps are in the same directory as the xml files.>>>>>You must be looking in other FS9 cab files then I am then :-)>>Because the ones I looked at DO have this /640 en /1024>substructure.>Like Beech_Baron.cab, Boeing747-400.cab and Sim_Icons.cab>(don't know about others)>>Rob You're right. Didn't realize that there's a "path" column in the .cab file window. :-)So I think everything is ok with my FSX install, but something else on my machine must be off. I can't imagine that I'm the only one having this problem. I didn't have any problems with the same gauges in FS9, on the same machine. Could it have something to do with the fact that I have Visual Studio 2005 installed on this machine ? Or do I need a particular version of MSXML ?

[Guest EnGauged]

This actually is the first time I've heard of this problem. Have you tried extracting the files from the .cab and putting them in a directory by the same name as the cab in a subdirectory of your gauges dir? It sounds like it's a bitmap loading issue...Doubtful that it's a VS2005 issue, since that's likely what the devs at Microsoft use to create Flight Sim. ;) But just out of curiosity, what version of VS 2005 are you running?

[Guest stewi2]

>This actually is the first time I've heard of this problem.>Have you tried extracting the files from the .cab and putting>them in a directory by the same name as the cab in a>subdirectory of your gauges dir? It sounds like it's a bitmap>loading issue...>I tried that, but it didn't change anything. I also think it has something to do with loading the bitmaps. Although filemon shows that it successfully loads the xml file, but then never even tries to load the bitmaps (filemon also shows file not found errors). My suspicion is that it is some sort of parse error. I'll try reinstalling msxml4. I also wished FSX had some sort of error log, but that's probably just wishful thinking...>Doubtful that it's a VS2005 issue, since that's likely what>the devs at Microsoft use to create Flight Sim. ;) But just>out of curiosity, what version of VS 2005 are you running?>>It's version 8.0.5727.42. I also just completely uninstalled it and that didn't fix the issue.>>

[Guest stewi2]

I just reinstalled FS2004 and guess what ? No XML gauges are showing on any default aircraft panel. ##### ? So this is definitely something on my machine, but I just can't figure out what it could be. I compared with a working installation on a different machine and can't see a significant difference in what is loaded neither with depends.exe nor filemon.exe. -- Stefan

[n4gix 4,947]

It sounds like your MSXML code is either missing or corrupted. I would suggest going here and installing the current version of the support code necessary for XML to work:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&DisplayLang=en

[Guest stewi2]

>It sounds like your MSXML code is either missing or>corrupted. I would suggest going here and installing the>current version of the support code necessary for XML to>work:>>http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&DisplayLang=enI already did that, but it didn't change anything. Also, at least fs9 actually has a copy of msxml.dll in its installation directory. Furthermore, strangely the newer FSX style XML gauges all work perfectly fine. It's just the fs9 style gauges that don't work in either fs9 nor fsx. --Stefan